After ten years, The Nude, a masterpiece by Giorgione, returns to the Gallerie dell'Accademia. Conservation restoration finished

At long last, after a decade of absence, the Nuda, a masterpiece by Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli?; Castelfranco Veneto, 1478 - Venice, 1510), is returning to the public at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, and will be on view again starting Tuesday, Feb. 25. The Nuda is a fragment of a fresco that decorated the façade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi on the Grand Canal: the building, the former trading post of Venice’s German community, had been destroyed by fire in 1505, and following reconstruction (completed by 1508) its façade was decorated with frescoes, including the masterpiece by the Castelfranco-born artist.

The Nuda, a female figure portrayed standing bare-breasted within a simple niche, has always aroused the admiration of commentators because of the “sanguine and flaming hue” of the flesh (so wrote, in 1760, the man of letters Anton Maria Zanetti, who had in any case observed it already much ruined), capable of making it seductive beyond its difficult interpretation. According to one reading it would represent an emblem of Venice’s political peace or commercial prosperity.

The work was detached from the Fondaco in 1937 because of its very poor condition and housed in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. The restoration, an extraordinary maintenance operation, consisted of a thorough cleaning of the painted surface, the removal of altered glues and tempera retouches, the plastering of small gaps and their lowering with tone glazes.

“A new and precious light,” declares Giulio Manieri Elia, director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, "will draw the Nuda from the exhibition context within which it will be placed in one of the recently rearranged rooms of sixteenth-century painting: the vocation to classicism, expressed in this work, belonging to Giorgione’s late season, will in fact find prominence in the comparison with the other precious works of Giorgione in the room and in the dialogue with the compositions of his young pupils, Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo, present in the same environment."

Pictured: Giorgione, The Nude, before restoration (c. 1508; detached fresco, 250 x 140 cm; Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia)

After ten years, The Nude, a masterpiece by Giorgione, returns to the Gallerie dell'Accademia. Conservation restoration finished

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.